Captain Future 06 - Star Trail to Glory (Spring 1941) Read Online Free PDF Page A

is in the Comet."
    The electroscopic finder was a massive cylindrical instrument whose conical lenses were mounted on the surface of the Moon. Curt turned on the instrument, and touched a screw that swung the lenses. His eyes were glued on the sensitive gages and indicators. The finder could locate the position and trail of any nearby space ship.
    It was sensitive to the ionized atomic rocket blasts of a ship.
    "This shows the Comet heading away from the Moon!" Curt cried. "It's going in the general direction of Venus!"
    "Then Otho's been overpowered by someone who has captured the Comet and is making off with it, lad," rasped the Brain, cool as always. "And we've no ship to follow in."
    Curt immediately jumped back to the televisor.
    "I'm going to call Planet Police headquarters on Earth and have them rush a ship here to us." But when he turned on the televisor again, a deafening sputtering came from it, through which no signal could be heard. "That's not static. Someone has deliberately jammed the ether around the Moon. The same ones who took the Comet did it to prevent our calling Earth. They've marooned us here so we can't follow them or answer the President's summons!"
     

     
Chapter 4: The Trail to Venus
     
    FUTURE could act in an emergency with unparalleled speed, but he never did things in a blind, heedless rush, no matter how grave the peril. Always his powerful mind rapidly assessed the situation, decided upon the most logical course of action, before he acted. He stood now, his fists clenched, his handsome face hard and grim. A stranger would have thought him speechless with wrath at the theft of the Comet.
    But the Brain knew from long experience that Curt was examining every factor of the situation in his lightning way.
    Then Captain Future sprang toward a tall electrical cabinet in a corner of the laboratory. Its face was bewilderingly covered with dials.
    "Whoever took the Comet dropped an electro-magnetic generator somewhere on the Moon, to keep the ether jammed," Curt rapped out. "If we can locate it and destroy it, we can get a message through. Call Grag."
    The Brain, using his newly acquired magnetic beams for propulsion, went flying out of the laboratory and through the rock tunnels in search of the robot.
    He found Grag sulking with Eek in a supply room. "Trouble, Grag," rasped Simon. In a few words he explained. Grag jumped up and hastily followed the flying Brain back to the laboratory. Captain Future was turning from the cabinet of sensitive electrical instruments, his gray eyes narrowed.
    "They're clever, Simon," he gritted. "They didn't drop their ether-jammer on the Moon where we could find and destroy it. They attached a small rocket-motor to it and left it circling the Moon at a high altitude, where we can't reach it."
    "Isn't there some way we can get at the thing and shut it off?" Grag boomed anxiously. "Maybe we could build a little rocket."
    "That would take us days," Curt retorted. "And in the meantime the President's calling for us, the Comet is being taken and we don't know what's happened to Otho. We must do something quickly to get a call through to Earth, but I don't know what —"
    "Lad, listen!” interrupted the Brain. "You're forgetting my new powers of flight! I could reach that ether-jammer and shut it off."
    "I must be space-struck not to have thought of that!" Curt Newton cried. "Wait, Simon. I'll locate the thing as accurately as I can and give you directional readings."
    Using the sensitive instruments in the tall cabinet, Captain Future plotted the course and position of the ether-jamming generator that had been left circling the Moon. He told the Brain the readings. Then they hurried to the air-lock which led out to the surface of the Moon. Curt paused inside the lock to pull on his space-suit, first buckling on his flat gray tool-belt and proton pistol. Grag, who did not breathe, needed no space-suit, nor did Simon.
    The three comrades went up through the air-lock and